9 a.m.
Tour of Rick Bayless's private urban/edible garden. This tour is only open to garden bloggers and special guests of Chicago Spring Fling. There is a reasonable cost associated with this tour of $12 per person. This is a private garden and the location of this event will not be made public. This will be the first event of the day and we will need to arrive there by 10.a.m. This event is limited to 45 people. We'll meet outside Club Quarters and leave as a group.
For those not attending the Bayless garden tour who have registered for Saturday's charter bus, we'll arrange for the bus to circle back and pick you up at Club Quarters at 10:30 a.m.
Saturday, May 30th 11:45 a.m.
Chicago Spring Fling attendees who didn't attend the urban/edible garden tour can meet us for a group lunch at Andies in Andersonville. The cost for lunch is 18.25 and includes tax and tip. Please have exact change. From here we'll board our bus for a short ride to Carolyn Gail's garden. She's graciously invited us into her garden for conversation and light refreshments. Carolyn will be raffling off her painting Jasper in May valued at $350 to an attendee on this day at her home.
Saturday, May 30th 2:15 p.m.
Ben Helphand, Executive Director of NeighborSpace, will give us a tour of the Ginko Organic Gardens. The Ginko Organic Gardens were started to help ease hunger among residents of the Uptown neighborhood. He'll talk to us about community gardening in Chicago.
Saturday, May 30th 3:30 p.m.
The gardens at the Lincoln Park Conservatory. We'll enjoy a leisurely stroll through the formal gardens outside of the conservatory or the rambling beds of Grandmother's Garden across the street, to continue our conversations from lunch within earshot of the roaring lions next door at Lincoln Park Zoo, the fluttering butterflies at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, and the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool Gardens. For those wishing to see the butterfly room, admission to the Notebaert museum is $9.00 for adults, $7.00 for seniors age 60+ and students. The Conservatory, outdoor gardens, and zoo are all free.
Saturday, May 30th 7 p.m.-?
Saturday's reservation at Giordano's - the quintessential Chicago pizzeria experience, (located at 223 W. JACKSON BLVD., an easy walk from Club Quarters,) - is set for 7:00 p.m. The menu includes an assortment of thin-crust and Chicago-style stuffed pizzas, salad, and soft drinks. It's all-you-can-eat and drink, and the *total per person including tip and tax will be $17.00 (exact change please)* We'll have discussions on garden blogging & door prizes for garden bloggers. Please fill out the form below to reserve your space & help us provide a count to the restaurant. Saturday's pizza party registration will close Saturday May 9th at midnight EST.
Transportion
We've reserved a 52-passenger ADA charter bus for Saturday. The bus will board at Club Quarters Hotel at 9:30 a.m. with stops at each of our destinations, then back to Club Quarters at about 5:00 p.m. For those not attending the Bayless garden tour, we'll arrange for the bus to circle back and pick you up at Club Quarters at 10:30 a.m.
Seats on the bus are offered on a first-come, first-served basis. We've reserved the largest bus available, and with the number of participants registered for Spring Fling it's possible we could reach or exceed capacity.
The cost per person is $26.00. In order to expedite this process you may reserve your seat by paying for it via PayPal here, with no additional registration forms to complete. Payments are being accepted today through April 30th.
If the bus is filled to capacity, the cost could drop to as low as $20.00 per person. If that occurs we'll refund overpayments in cash at Spring Fling. Because we can't predict how many people will reserve a seat, we felt this would be the most efficient way to manage reserving and pricing seats. We hope you'll join us on the bus Saturday. Please let us know if you have any questions.
See Events Page for Sunday, May 31st.
See Chicago Spring Fling map.
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